New Hotel Hints At Potential of Deer District

A new hotel has quickly taken shape across from Fiserv Forum, redefining the feel of the Deer District area and promising to create a new stream of activity.

Flagged as part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection, The Trade will be a nine-story, 205-room hotel. It will include restaurants on the first and ninth floors as well as first-floor commercial space and an 8,700-square-foot event and meeting space on the second floor with an outdoor terrace. The ninth floor restaurant and bar will include a rooftop deck. Select guest rooms will have balconies.

The hotel is being developed by a partnership of the Milwaukee Bucks and North Central Group (NCG) on land that once sat under the Park East Freeway, and, in July 2021, thousands of fans cheering the team’s NBA finals run and celebrating the championship.

An affiliate of the team now owns the land, addressed as 420 W. Juneau Ave., and is leasing it to Middleton-based NCG.

Since we last covered the project in February, workers from J.H. Findorff & Son have moved from working on the first and second floor to the eighth and ninth. The oversized first two floors are now clearly visible as the more conventional floors with guest rooms rise above. The underlayer of the facade is now starting to be installed, with a test panel of what the exterior will look resting in the construction yard just north of the building.

The hotel is scheduled to open in 2023.

The hotel will occupy only the portion of the block closest to the arena. The northern half, according to master plan documents, could eventually house an office building with a parking structure built between the two buildings.

The site is one of many blocks made available by the 2004 demolition of the Park East Freeway, a fact highlighted by then-Mayor Tom Barrett at the hotel’s September groundbreaking.

“This is a story about a city divided and now a city weaved together,” said Barrett about demolishing the elevated freeway. He praised former mayor John Norquist for his vision to remove the freeway and the Bucks for the vision to build a neighborhood around the arena. “The story being completed here is about what happens when you have a vision.”

New Mayor Cavalier Johnson has a vision of one-million Milwaukee residents, which likely means the Bucks will need to develop housing for several hundred, if not thousand, future Milwaukeeans in the surrounding area.

That fits, in part, with the vision of Bucks President Peter Feigin.

“We want to be that destination where people come to work, where people come to live and, obviously, where people come to play,” said Feigin at the May 23 press conference announcing a concert venue complex planned for the other side of the arena. It’s a refrain executive has often repeated when it comes to the vision for the area.

Developing some sort of “district” around a subsidized sports stadium is clearly in vogue, but the Deer District has the chance to stand out from the crowd. Unlike stadiums created in suburban environments, the Deer District could seamlessly connect Fiserv Forum to the rest of Downtown.

The Trade’s first few floors will play an important role in the success of such a city-stadium connection. While the arena’s north facade offers little in the way of activation, the hotel could enliven W. Juneau Ave. and encourage walking in a corridor that has been largely forgotten ever since the freeway was constructed.

The Bucks’ ownership group was sold a series of county-owned former freeway blocks for $1, in part because a sewer under it needed to be relocated and the elevated freeway’s removal stopped short of including its subsurface concrete supports. A site plan identifies 12 such structures within the hotel’s footprint.

The hotel is being designed by Gary Brink & Associates.

The fourth floor is targeted at landing the business of the visiting basketball teams. Unlike the other guest floors, each room in the planning documents submitted to the city is labeled with “NBA” for the room name. It also includes a meeting room. Teams primarily stay at the Pfister Hotel or Kimpton Journeyman Hotel today. The league’s collective bargaining agreement requires teams to find “first-class hotels” for their players with extra-long beds and porters to carry baggage.

Parking for the hotel will be accommodated through the adjacent 5th Street Parking Garage jointly built by the city and team. A future parking structure, built as part of further development of the hotel block, is intended as a long-term parking solution. The north side of the hotel is expected to be largely covered by the garage and a potential office building.

Property tax revenue from the privately-financed hotel will go toward paying back tax incremental financing debt associated with the stadium project, primarily debt associated with the parking garage and plaza. The hotel should generate a steady stream of tax revenue. The Aloft Hotel, located two blocks east, is assessed for $20.5 million but is both smaller (160 rooms) and positioned lower in the market.

Photos

Pre-Construction Site Photos

Renderings

Deer District 2019 Conceptual Renderings